O’Reilly Vs. Sister Simone Campbell On Helping The Poor

Three cheers for Sister Simone Campbell, who appeared on The O’Reilly Factor tonight, and went toe to toe with Bill O’Reilly over helping the poor. O’Reilly tried to argue that because poverty has increased, that’s proof that social welfare programs haven’t worked. Sister Simone wasn’t buying it. She told O'Reilly in no uncertain terms that the problem is stagnant wages.

Sister Simone’s best line was at the end:

If it’s because of flat wages then it’s about time we addressed the issue of wages. That’s what Jesus would say: pay to the laborer what his worth is. Let’s do it.

Showing 15 reactions

@John Bialoglow, Your example of employer hires is a good look at the welfare situation. Insofar as, people who are given everything (or a lot), and that even includes some of the rich, have a tendency to become comfortable with their situation and thus do nothing to try and improve or change it. BOR’s quote about the national poverty level increasing by 4%, despite 26 trillion dollars in welfare funding, is a blatantly obvious sign of the programs failure. Due in part to what I was talking about a few sentences ago. A good example of something that sounds good, but is actually harmful IS minimum wage! Everyone thinks that it helps people secure a certain pay level, and that would be good, but what it actually does is prevent the under qualified (often times the biggest reason for joblessness) from obtaining work that could lead to the experience required to get a better paying job. In fact, if you watch Milton Freidman’s lecture about minimum wage, he will spell it out a lot better than I can. I just wanted to bring that to light.
The problem I have been noticing amongst politicians from both sides of the aisle, as well as a LOT of average Americans, is that they want to run the country on IDEALS instead of realities. And, as Alexander Tytler is misquoted as saying, "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.

“From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits [ideals] from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.”

This is evident RIGHTNOW, with the skyrocketing deficit. I hate to take people off of cloud nine, but as the old adage goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

There is no one representing the middle class, therefore the rich get richer and the middle class become the poor. Will an employer hire hire 3 full time 40 hour a week employees with benefits or 4 part time 30 hour a week employees with no benefits? The answer is obvious. It is all about profit
sometimes correctly identified as greed. Sister Simone is one who correctly identified some of the problems to be faced. The choice to be made in November is which isthe lesser of the two evils? More
power to the government (OBAMA) or more power to the already rich and powerful (ROMNEY). There is a genuine need to find and elect honest men to the
political arena. Is there an honest man in any branch of government? If so please stand up and begin doing what is right for the American people and not yourself or your party. Is there an honest man left in Washington? It is doubtful.
DISGUSTED

@Joshua Hatheway âI donât watch BOR or know him that well, but I doubt he campaigns (or âCrusadesâ) for the elimination of social safety nets. I would think he is voicing problems he has with the administration of welfare, of which many think could be improved. -—————-

Note that I did not say BOR was for the “elimination” of government programs that provide assistance. Even BOR isnât cold-hearted enough to demand that societyâs safety nets via government assistance be eliminated. But, as his pronouncements against the “entitlement society” show, he’s crusading against government assistance programs as they currently exist because he wants to have these entitlements/aid programs redesigned and cut back (or, more gently put, get entitlement spending “under control”). Heâs said that spending on entitlements has to be cut which would possibly include âwelfare payments to the poorâ and that those who have received government assistance should âhave to pay back a portionâ of it when things turn around for them. Heâs called for age of Social Security and Medicare qualification to be raised and he has said that heâs for privatization of SS. Now, having noted that I didnât use the word âeliminationâ, there is a place where it would have definitely been appropriate to have used that word as thereâs no doubt that BOR is in favor of eliminating federal funding for Planned Parenthood despite the fact that PP provides vital health services for low income women in our society.

As Ellen pointed out âthe question is, who does that include?â and those who watch BOR have heard plenty of disparaging remarks made by him characterizing a good portion of those receiving government assistance as being âslackersâ, drug users (which is why BOR favors the idea behind drug testing welfare applicants), people who just get by instead of âputting in the hard work necessaryâ to become âindependently successfulâ and just plain “weak” and “irresponsible” people who want âfree stuffâ - while he tends to overlook the fact that so many on government assistance are the working poor who still have trouble making ends meet or getting healthcare for their families (especially in the tough economic downturn from 2007 forward).

One thing I find disturbing is the divisive manner in which BOR goes out of his way to pit Americans against each other when it comes to government assistance. He learned well from Reaganâs âCadillac-driving welfare queensâ and âstrapping young bucks using food stamps to buy steaksâ rhetoric. In his FOX ânewsâ role as a âtraditionalâ populist, BOR knows that this aspect of the right-wingâs version of class warfare (the hard working vs. the so-called lazy mooches) works well to rile up the viewers to his (and the GOP’s) POV.

Too bad BOR canât manage to get himself this worked up over all the corporate welfare being handed out…

I want everyone commenting on this post to go ahead and pull their heads out of their proverbial asses, take a deep breath of reality and finally realize that, like it or not, it IS NOT the responsibility of the government to take care of people. The government’s sole and ONLY responsibility is to defend the country from threats to our constitution, which provides us with the framework in which we pursue life, liberty and happiness. The Founding Fathers designed the system this way because they themselves were a direct result of a national government which had alloted itself too much power. The duty of delegating things not contained within the Constitution belongs to the States. It was not designed this way for fun, but for necessity. Our Founding Fathers were wise enough to know the danger of an all powerful (all providing) government to the people for which it is supposed to represent and protect. Now more to the point, social welfare programs, at face value, seem to be for the benefit of those using them. But upon further investigation one learns that they in fact have the OPPOSITE effect. I do not have the time to explain the actual economics of the situation and so challenge all of you to listen to the lectures of people like Milton Freidman (Nobel Prize winning economist) and Thomas Sowell (National Humanities Medal awardee, Economist). Do not listen to what others tell you about these men. Just go to YouTube and type in their names. If you are still jaded by what the liberal and conservative media says, and find these men to make now sense, feel free to email me directly with any insults, comments or concerns you might have. My email is klewis1x@gmail.com.

And one more thing:
“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them”
-Thomas Jefferson

Ok then, visitor 55. All I was doing was asking for an example of where “borally” said he thinks the government should eliminate social safety nets. I do not watch him, so I do not know. I just wanted you to back up your claim so I can start calling him a POS too. But I guess that’s kinda lazy for me, will have to look for myself before I can form an opinion on the matter. Don’t have cable though, guess I can look him up on internet.

‘Thatâs what Jesus would say: pay to the laborer what his worth is.’

That’s what Adam Smith would say, too, Bill:

" Is this improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the people to be regarded as an advantage or as an inconveniency to the society? The answer seems at first sight abundantly plain. Servants, labourers, and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged."
Wealth of Nations, Book I, chapter 8

It’s nice to see two people have a healthy debate on an issue. People with shows who only invite guests who will echo their viewpoints are boring and mind numbing.

@d d —I don’t watch BOR or know him that well, but I doubt he campaigns (or “Crusades”) for the elimination of social safety nets. I would think he is voicing problems he has with the administration of welfare, of which many think could be improved.

Freakin’ BOR and his continued crusade against programs that aid those in need – he’s become overly shrill on the subject and can’t see the truth of the matter because he’s too focused on the idea that lazy people are getting his money. Sister Campbell is absolutely correct to counter back that wages are a problem – a matter that I have yet to hear FOX “news” even attempt to honestly tackle for the sake of America’s workers (especially the manufacturing/production workers who have seen their jobs go overseas to cheaper labor centers). Oh sure, we hear the FOX “news” pundits talking down Unions and their “outrageous” pay/benefits and the conservative pundits will line up to complain that Obama isn’t doing enough to create jobs (all while they defend the outsourcing of jobs, of course). But they won’t talk about how the manufacturing jobs that are returning to America are returning with lower wages – and what the economic consequences will be when only a small segment of Americans have the $ while the greater portion of the population have less and less disposable income (to do even the basic things like pay for a healthcare plan or send their kids to college). I’ve seen the charts and heard discussions regarding shrinking wages and the growing wealth disparity on MSNBC and the internet but I have yet to see these same charts/discussions on FOX “news”.

Clearly those with the money/power realize that far too many Americans have financial needs/are in debt up to their eyeballs and that they need the jobs even if they are at the lower wages with less benefits. They can crow that they are being good patriots because they are giving jobs to Americans but downplay (ignore?) the fact that they are able to stuff more $ into their own/shareholders’ pockets since they are now paying out less in wages/benefits. Those in these positions of power can take full advantage of the situation because America’s blue collar workers will have no choice but to keep working the low wage jobs because they can’t afford to quit even these low-wage jobs, to get more education/job training or to start businesses of their own (which requires that one be able to afford your own healthcare since, in America, healthcare is stupidly tied to one’s job).* But then, maybe that’s what the powerful want – millions of Americans who feel that they have no other choice? Neo-feudalism and/or Plutonomy? After all, it’s much easier to control the masses when they have less choice. Of course, if this keeps on in the direction it’s heading, Americans won’t even be able to afford to buy the products they make and, if history is any reminder, it’s not healthy for a country to have a discontented middle/lower class. Heads could roll…

As per Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz…

“Median wealth fell 40 percent from 2007 to 2010, bringing it back to where it was in the early â90s. For two decades, all the increase in the countryâs wealth, which was enormous, went to the people at the very top. It may have been a prosperous two decades. But it wasnât like we all shared in this prosperity.

The financial crisis really made this easy to understand. Inequality has always been justified on the grounds that those at the top contributed more to the economy â âthe job creators.â

Then came 2008 and 2009, and you saw these guys who brought the economy to the brink of ruin walking off with hundreds of millions of dollars. And you couldnât justify that in terms of contribution to society.

The myth had been sold to people, and all of a sudden it was apparent to everybody that it was a lie.
Mitt Romney has called concerns about inequality the âpolitics of envy.â Well, thatâs wrong. Envy would be saying, âHeâs doing so much better than me. Iâm jealous.â This is: âWhy is he getting so much money, and he brought us to the brink of ruin?â And those who worked hard are the ones ruined. Itâs a question of fairness."http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/11/2946290/making-a-case-to-close-wealth.html

*btw, why aren’t those in favor of Obamacare pointing out that it will allow the folks more freedom with regards to their job situation in that someone can more easily become an entrepreneur if they can get healthcare via Obamacare instead of staying at a job they dislike because they need the healthcare via their employer?

Good job Sister! Bill, with his ridiculous arguments based on logical fallacies, is surely going to hell ;)

There is a simple solution to the right wing whine about entitlements. Raise the minimum wage so that someone working full-time at minimum wage earns more than the level needed to qualify for food stamps, Medicare and Housing. Its just that simple! By keeping the minimum wage low it is the right which has created dependency on the government. But the real beneficiaries of this dependence are the employers-like Walmart who can afford to pay more but don’t have to and don’t want to.

Sadly the right doesn’t want solutions, they just want talking points and low taxes for the hell-bound rich like O’Reilly.

POS Billdo, who here and there threatens to pull his millions off his stock market investments, blames the poor for BEING poor.

Contrary to popular wingnut belief the poor didn’t cause the Real Estate bubble and its corresponding Stock Market bubble. And the Wall Street meltdown of the “job creators”

The inflated Billdo is parroting the imbecility of bat-chit crazy Michelle Bachmann and pig Limpo,
- Let’s get rid of minimum wage and minimum AGE labor standards. You can actually starve yourself off poverty!